It's true! It's true! The crown
has made it clear.
The climate must be perfect
all the year.
A law was made
a distant moon ago here:
July and August cannot be too hot.
And there's a legal limit to the snow
here in Camelot.
--King Arthur, "Camelot"
Unfortunately, as we know in Arkansas, you can't rule the weather. Not that it hasn't been tried. In 2012, the North Carolina state legislature, faced with an estimate that the sea level will rise by 39 inches in the next century, passed HB819 to stop it. This bill banned the state from using the latest scientific predictions in developing coastal policies. The governor allowed the bill to become law by doing nothing. Change that "snow" in the song lyrics to "sea level" or "CO2".
But a July 9, 2016, News and Observer op-ed observed: "Sea-level rise is upon us, and in the near future we will be forced to retreat from the shoreline. ... Already in North Carolina, widespread killing of trees in the lowermost coastal plain is evidence of sea-level rise."
I was just on an island in the Yucatan, where locals told me that the beach is much shorter, and my hotel housekeeper told me she knew it was from ice melting in the Arctic. The 60 residents of Isle de Jean Charles, La., on the Mississippi Delta are being relocated with federal funds because of sea-level rise, at a cost of $48 million. The Pacific islands and Miami are already experiencing saltwater intrusion and flooding.
Our president-elect is no King Arthur. He won't be able to delay climate change with denial or legislation either. But his proposed Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, is well aware of climate change.
Exxon scientists did the research on the impacts of CO2 and climate change in the '70s, though they suppressed the result. The New York attorney general began an investigation of Exxon Mobil to determine whether the company lied to the public about the risks of climate change or to investors about how such risks might hurt the oil business.
A Nov. 5, 2015, article in the New York Times about this investigation mentioned: "The people said the inquiry would include a period of at least a decade during which Exxon Mobil funded outside groups that sought to undermine climate science, even as its in-house scientists were outlining the potential consequences--and uncertainties--to company executives."
There is, however, one bright spot in all of this. In April 2016, Rex Tillerson called for "a refundable greenhouse gas emissions fee. " Google "Rex Tillerson on carbon tax, YouTube."
This fee starts low and steadily rises, incentivizing investments in renewable energies, and giving the economy time to adjust. Then the money collected is returned to the consumer, protecting the economy and the less affluent from the higher energy prices.
Though Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP and several other oil companies may be calling for a carbon tax, they are also maneuvering to expand oil production. Exxon could also make a lot of money on natural gas production since natural gas is a less carbon-intensive fossil fuel than oil. This makes me wonder at Tillerson's particular motives for "a refundable greenhouse gas emission fee."
However, James Hansen and most of our other respected climate scientists, as well as George Shultz (former secretary of state for Ronald Reagan) and a growing number of Republicans and Democrats in Congress are calling for a carbon fee and dividend. Even our own Arkansas congressional delegation acknowledges that climate change is real and must be addressed.
A carbon fee and dividend would meet their criteria for a market-based system that doesn't financially stress low-income consumers, who can in fact come out ahead with the dividend. Over 1,000 corporations have already written a carbon fee into their budget planning, considering it inevitable and wanting to be prepared.
Camelot failed, except for the hope in the eyes of a young boy who recognized the greatness that it once was, a place where Might for Right, rather than Might is Right, is the guiding principle, and where the knights meeting at the Round Table created a civilized world.
This bright hope for our one shared planet must continue. By enacting a fee on fossil-fuel pollution and returning it to the consumer, we can begin to mitigate global warming and hopefully keep the temperature rise below 2 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels, preventing the most disastrous predicted effects.
We may even be able to do it with a Trump presidency if we can work together to demand action to "Make Nature Great Again."
In short, there's simply not
A more congenial spot
[It is, in fact, our only spot.]
For happily-ever-aftering
than here in Camelot.
------------v------------
Shelley Buonaiuto of Fayetteville is co-chair of the Arkansas Citizens' Climate Lobby.
Editorial on 01/06/2017